Album Covers - Does it matter?

When I was young and had time to listen to music carefully, the cover - and inside photos and lyrics - were an integral part of the experience. From my point of vie, I favored cover with tons of details to be disscovered at each time I sat down to listen to a record. Iron Maiden and MArillion's Fish era were the ideal covers to get lost into, although they wer mostly crimes againt humanity.

BTW, I love dreadful covers. They give you a reason to laugh among friends. Specially Ozric Tentacles. My friend Victor once said "I Liked "curious Corn", so I'm buying another one. There are tons of 'em, so I'm getting the one with the less terrible cover art". He came home with an Ozric Tentacles record, but clearly depressed. "Would you belive THIS was their best cover?"

It was hard to believe. And I became an Ozric tentacles fan since that moment.

The only time I bought an album on the basis of the cover alone was Pallas' "The Sentinel", and I hated the music- but Patrick Woodroffe's art is great. It was a much bigger part of the package with vinyl- cassettes were almost useless and CDs are only about halfway to acceptable viewing size. Try making out the details on the CD version of Crumb's wonderful "Cheap Thrills" cover- it's almost an injustice. Roger Dean, Hypgnosis, Phil Travers (Moody Blues), Mouse (Grateful Dead), and that tricky Patrick Woodroffe were my favorites, but there's thousands of really impressive covers. As good a reason as any to collect vinyl

emdiar wrote: 12" covers were so much better and I, for one, lament their passing.

Me too... thats why I keep collecting vinyl...

I don't think covers have anything to do with my buying or liking an album.  I think sometimes they show an attitude that the band might be going thru.. but don't usually portray the music.

I think we can tell what my favorite album cover is by my avatar, but I also thought the KC - ITCOTKC cover was beautiful.  There is an artist here in Queens that did a marvelous art sculpture of it.. that Greg Lake's mgt. company bought for display in their upstate NY offices..

I also love The Division Bell Cover and interior artwork.  Actually Pink Floyd has put together some really beautiful song books that are almost like coffee table books with extremely beautiful artwork.  I almost bought them all just for the aesthetic value.

it does!

I bought the album the sentinel from Pallas because of its great artwork.

it was the best album i ever heared !, an all time favourite.

maani wrote: I have never bought an album solely on its cover, nor would I ever even think of doing so.

Where's your sense of adventure Maani?!

Next you'll be telling us you've never driven down a freeway in the wrong direction at 100 mph!

hi there...

well people, i agree with the fact that a record shouldn't be avoided or bought beacuse of the cover, however, being an architect and designer i really enjoy and appreciate the artwork of every single album (even if the artwork sucks), anyway... people like Roger dean, Strom thorgerson, Bill Smith and so many more, has built a career in design beacuse of the record covers thay has been made since the late 60's.

i do belive in design, and i do belive that design is an integral part of our lives, whenever you look, your eyes will find designed things.

These days we have also different cd packages that upgrade the final product which happens to be MUSIC, so i don't consider artwork a condition, but an upgrade. If record covers weren't important, it wouldn't be books documenting those.

peace

AngelRat wrote: Would Yes ever have had the same amount of popularity without Roger Dean?

Well considering they only really became popular after Roger stopped doing their album art (the pop years), I'd say they would have